Customer Reviews

Stormwater Management for Smart Growth

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An integrated treatment of state-of-the-art stormwater quality and quantity as practiced for smart growth would be a valuable timely contribution to the literature. The two knowledgeable well-published authors have the depth of experience necessary to take on this challenge.

Unfortunately this expensive book is largely a standard summary of state-of-the practice "design event" stormwater methods from 10-15 years ago with very little new or original material and virtually no "state-of-the-art" content as advertised.

The book would be acceptable as a text for a one-semester undergraduate course on stormwater engineering computations for a program aimed at practitioners - i.e. how to do standard calculations to get permit approvals for your client. Smart growth as highlighted in the book's title seems present in this text only incidentially - as in "these standard computations could be applied in a smart growth development too".

The hydrology presented is standard curve number hydrology without any substantive treatment of the application of CN computations for detailed sub-parcel designs for onsite controls. The consistent underestimation of small storm runoff by CN is not substantively addressed; neither are the significant differences between runoff computations with weighted CN vs. weighted runoff for areas with significant impervious area, or treating runon from disconnected impervious area in pervious area runoff. Current state-of-the-practice design hydrology - like the Delaware Urban Runoff Management Model (DURMM) or Robert Pitt's research on urban runoff as implemented in SLAMM is not addressed. Most disappointing is the single emphasis on "design event" computations with no connection to continuous hydrology or - how infiltration & interception practices can be integrated with detention and floodways in total site design over the full range of stormwater flows.

Treatment of green roofs, is minimal 1-2 pages - basically computation of void space in the planting mix - as the design storage volume; treatment of pervious pavement & structural soils, is absent.

The text would serve as a useful reference in basic methods for a practitioner. Designers, students, engineers, and environmental scientists looking for stormwater management methods for environmentally sensitive design will ikely be disappointed in this book